CSX now refusing to grant right-of-way to MTA for the Capital Crescent Trail

Gary Erenrich, MCDOT’s Purple Line project coordinator, broke the news at the 20 March 2014 Planning Board Purple Line/CCT mandatory referral. Mr. Erenrich announced that CSXT was now refusing to grant right-of-way to MTA for the CCT, MCDOT was now responsible for any further negotiations with CSXT for trail right-of-way, and that as things stand now the CCT would end at Talbot Avenue as an off-road trail. I have since had an email exchange with Mr. Erenrich, and he has clarified that MTA received a letter from CSXT mid-January stating they would not grant any CSXT right-of-way for a trail alone, and that MCDOT was now evaluating the physical feasibility and the cost of alternative trail alignments. Mr. Erenrich expects their preliminary evaluation of the alternatives to be completed in a month or so.

Oh CSX, everytime I think you might not be so bad, you prove me wrong. You're worse than Arvin Sloane. I can tell you what, I know who I won't be using to ship my future coal tonnage.

There is hope though

Fortunately there is a good alternative trail alignment that can avoid CSXT property behind the Park Sutton building, shown above. This alternative would go around the front of Park Sutton by using Lyttonsville Road and 16th Street. Lyttonsville Road is overbuilt, and that extra wide road right-of-way can accomodate a full width trail with no need to ‘take’ private property. A trail along the west side of 16th Street will require either taking a strip of right-of-way from the Park Sutton Condominium Association, or putting 16th Street on a “road diet” and closing a southbound lane of the roadway for trail and sidewalk use.

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This is bad news, but most of the Purple Line/CCT plan is unchanged.
This CSX isssue impacts only about 1600' of the planned CCT alignment between Bethesda and Silver Spring. The 3+ mile section from Bethesda to Talbot Ave. is in the Georgetown Branch r.o.w. and is not affected. There is county owned r.o.w. on Third and Fourth Avenues that will be used for about 2/3 of the CCT "final mile" down the east side of the CSX corridor into downtown Silver Spring. A "bypass" of CSX may only be needed at Park Sutton.